Category Archives: Food

There is a phrase my husband and I picked up from the British television show Doctor Who. Said very simply and quickly, (and with an accent), it goes: “Pizza-Booze-Telly.”

The phrase invocates the perfect stay-at-home evening: a delicious (and comforting) mix of carbohydrates and entertainment. And while we don’t replicate it exactly (neither of us feeling pizza so often would be healthy—nor being inclined towards beer—nor having enough money in the budget for alcoholic beverages EVERY time we watch TV)—the phrase has nevertheless come to embody our mutual love of cozy evenings.

The recipe goes something like this: You say to yourselves: Shall we eat in the kitchen? Nah, let’s bring our bowl of hot-something to the couch. Shall we stay in our work clothes? Of course not. Comfy pajamas it is, then. What shall we watch? Nothing scary. Nothing intense.Something sweet. And almost kind. Nothing cruel, or corse, or unrefined. How about something British?

Pizza-booze-telly.

We sit, swathed in blankets and pajamas and each other’s arms, and we forget the aches of the day, the cares of tomorrow, and for just a little while life is simple.

I remember at times, in days past, feeling a pang of guilt that such evenings weren’t spent more productively. Like… reading. Time has replaced that guilt with thankfulness.

Our days (and evenings) are now what you might call over-productive. I have a twelve-hour day and get home from work late in the evening only to cook, clean, grocery shop, and fall into bed to do it all over again. Due to long commutes, I even read over two hours of literature a day. My husband likewise has a long day and late evenings of study for his two masters degrees. We are nothing if not productive.

And do you know what it’s made me realize? That leisure is a gift. That while comfort, when at the expense of work, is laziness, that rest from one’s toils is both needed and not always forthcoming.

We are not owed evenings of cozy togetherness. But in a culture where being busy is deified as an inherent virtue, I am reminded that we are called to live daily lives. Sufficient to each day is its troubles. Give us this day our daily bread. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.

I am reminded of Abraham—sitting out on his tent porch in the heat of the day, eating a meal with his heavenly visitors.

I am reminded of God Himself—walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

Perfect industry, taking perfect rest.

Isn’t that what He calls us to in the Lord’s supper? Come all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest? We break the bread and drink the wine remembering that the perfect sacrifice was paid for our guilt: that blood and sweat were spilt so that we might cease striving and find perfect peace in Christ.

So if you will excuse the comparison of the common to the holy, at the end of our daily labors there is sometimes (and not always) a kind of supper and rest. For a lucky few, I suppose it looks a bit like our pizza-booze-telly evenings. But for most of I suspect our rest takes different forms. It is when the busy mother cherishes those few quiet moments of bed-time story telling. It is when the father bows his head and prays over the meal. It is when the student puts his books away for a Sabbath Rest. It is in the few cherished moments a couple gets at the end of a long day. And always it is in the bowed head—when we who are burdened quiet our hearts, cast our cares upon Him, and remember: He has given you rest.

This past weekend my family came down from New York to Virginia to visit me and my husband. It’d been several months since we’d seen them, so we filled up the weekend with seeing Arlington Cemetery, General Lee’s house, and having lots of long talks and culinary experiences. On Saturday we all shared one big injera at an Ethiopian restaurant (a sourdough sponge like bread from which we ate our lamb and beef and pea curries), Saturday night we had my dijon-and-rosemary pot roast, and then on Sunday we finished off with Mexican food at a little hole-in-the-wall called Jarochita.

As is my habit at every Mexican restaurant I visit, I always ask to see if they sell horchata, a rice and cinnamon drink I’d had as a child. Usually the answer is “no.” A very few times in the last fifteen years they’ve had a powdered version—usually rather chalky, dark, and overly sweet and, once tried, enjoyed only for the shadow it bears to the original.

But Jarochita is a special Mexican restaurant. You can’t order except in Spanish—and, lucky for us, my Dad is fluent enough that just this past weekend he was asked whether or not he was actually American (he is—and the proper grandson of Italians). He was entirely in charge of ordering, so out came plates of beef and lengua (tongue) tacos, garnished solely with sweet onions and cilantro. Out came a plate of grilled cactus. And then! Then out came three styrofoam liters of horchata. We took the lids off and I felt a happy glimmering of recognition as I saw the pearly-white liquid swishing around ice. I took a sip.

And my eyes filled with tears.

I couldn’t help it. It was just like that moment in Ratatouille when Anton is transported back to his childhood. I realized I hadn’t tasted that refreshing, light, milky-sweet-cinnamon taste since I was five or six years old in California. All at once I could see again the little Mexican cafe in San Leandro—plopped, as it seemed, in the middle of a parking lot like a drive-through Dairy Queen… half of its sides were windows, and inside were a few small, bare tables and two percolating machines of aguas frescas—cool waters, horchata on ice.

I sipped my horchata contentedly. And I thought how strange it was that this was the first time I had experienced anything like this—such vivid transportation backward through taste alone. I suppose it is because so many of my favorite childhood tastes I still enjoy—my mother still cooks the same amazing soups, stews, meats, beans, and desserts as she always has. There is nothing else I can think of but horchata that holds such a loved-and-lost place in my palate.

Loved-and-lost-and-found. We declared Jarochita the best Mexican food we’d had outside of California. “No,” Dad corrected himself emphatically, “outside of Mexico!”

And I suppose it was. But it was also deliciously like what I remembered in California, and for that I am grateful.

There’s a reason why people of every tribe and nation will worship before the throne of God. And it’s not just because God is faithful and good that way—I’m convinced it’s because He loves diversity. He created it.

I have, for many years, had a bit of my heart lost, given, and invested in the people of India. There are, I admit, many things about the culture which are unredeemed: idol worship, the cast system, the objectification of women, etc. But there are also beautiful things. They have a fearless and exultant love for beauty.

This past weekend I had the delight of hosting an Indian evening for over a dozen other girls. I donned my salwar, a tunic of a brilliant red, black, and white textile, and at 5:30 bustled into the kitchen. Out came the spices! Up went the heat! One girl started her lentils, another started cutting up onions, ginger, garlic, cilantro. I began on a sesame brittle—my friends got naan ready and helped dish out the spices as needed. We talked over the cacophony of pans, (we managed to burn a batch of rice and its pot), many female voices, and the stove fan, while Bollywood tunes blasting from my laptop.

At last all was ready and the spread set on the table, feasting before our eyes: A South Indian Dahl, a coconut curry, rice, naan, snapped peas, and our sesame dessert. Oh, so good. All of us college students fairly died with delight. So much flavor—all that sultry spice twirling and blazing in your mouth. Beauty.

Then we movie-marathoned. Three and half hours of Lagaan—a tale of rebellion against the British Raj in the form of a cricket game with very high-stakes (and of course, lots of romance), punctuated by whirling, colorful dances—joyful and expressive. Beauty. Afterwards, Slumdog Millionaire–one of the best films ever made.

I could talk for a long time about why that films so good—how it gives one of the most relentless and raw depictions of Christ-like love ever depicted on screen. But one of the things that amazes me so is how beautiful it is… yes, it shows the squalor, filth, and depravity the characters experience—but also amazing redemption, true unconditional love. My favorite part is the end, when Jamal kisses the scar on Latika’s face, undoing all the defilement and shame’s she’s experienced, saying without words, “You are beautiful to me”—and the film closes with one fantastic dance sequence, complete with a hundred extras on a train-station platform, Latika dancing it up in white and jeans with a brilliant yellow scarf. Love triumphant.

Ah, Indians love a good dance. and color. So much color. Even in the poorest places in India, even the beggars are arrayed in the most brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows.

I believe the love God has given me for India springs from seeing in it something of God’s own beauty. And so I imagine that, if Christ redeems the best from every culture, in Heaven we’ll all be wearing colors more brilliant than the sun. And our Indian brothers and sisters in the Lord will be sharing with us really good food—and showing us how to dance before the throne of grace.